A Candle in the Dark

Lasriel

Dark hair and eyes, fair complexion, thin and rather tall, about 1.75m

Description:

Lasriel is a tall female human, at the age of 17. Her hair and eyes are dark and her complexion pale. She has no extraordinary features, except that she is rather tall for a woman, about 1.75m. She is thin, since limited resources never filled her stomach to her satisfaction. She is bright, but weak in body. Silent, most of the time, her voice is low and calm. She takes pleasure in hearing other people talk rather than talk herself. She is frail and looks like a child, despite her height. Most of the times, she is as good as invisible.

Stats

Ability

Score

Modifier

STR

7

-2

DEX

10

0

CON

9

-1

INT

13

+1

WIS

10

0

CHA

10

0

Bio:

Lasriel was a girl of seventeen winters. She was born in Koln, where she grew up as a farmer’s daughter, never given the chance for a childhood in the hard times of the village. From a very early age, the fields and the feeding of poorer neighbours were her greatest concerns. The times were hard everywhere and she had learnt most painfully to hold her tongue in view of the monstrosity of the orcs and the agents of the Shadow. Her eldest brother, more than ten years her senior, was killed one day in the forest, as a result for carrying a weapon. “Resistance”, or “freedom”, the words that he frequently spoke of before his death, scarred her deeply, when she saw his body carried back to the village.

After that incident, her whole family never spoke of such things again. In fact they were all silently excluded from social life, as no one wished to show that they were intimate with a family that had the stigma of the rebel. Less than a twelvemonth after the incident, they left the village in secret, looking for another place to settle. They found shelter a few months later in one of the hidden villages, where the authority of the Shadow had not yet rooted. There, they started a new life, never saying a word why they left, or what their past was. Lasriel grew in silence, amongst humans and dwarfs, the family resources limited since secrecy did not allow them to trade.

But she was a bright child, prematurely grown after her broher’s death and his vision was strong inside her. Having been left an only child, she never wished the same fate to befall her and ruin forever the lives of their parents. So, she kept her dreams secrets. But she could detect them in the eyes of some villagers, or of strangers who passed by. She kept her eyes and ears open, as much as she kept her mouth shut. Some words marked her and those were that ignorance would be the true and final conqueror of them all. So, above all, she wanted to learn to read and write, not to be ignorant. She gathered with care all papers that she could find, trying to understand the letters by herself, since she had no one to teach her. It was long and hard, it cost her many sleepless nights, but it rewarded her with the ability to understand written language and reproduce it. Under the floor, in her tiny room, she kept her treasures well hidden from all, including her parents. So, she used a feather as a quill and anything she could find as ink, once even her own blood, to write down thing of her everyday life, memories to outlive her and remain as a legacy for generations to come. Old cloths were used as paper when she could not find any.

After her brother’s death, she was not allowed even to use the kitchen knife. She did not want to, anyway. Blades scared her. All sorts of weapons terrified her. She preferred in the fields to use her bare hands and there was no other place where she might need any sort of blade. She knew that if ever there was anything that she could do to help overthrow the Shadow, the quill would be her sword. That and her ability to listen more than she talked, even though the villagers seemed to enjoy the sound of her voice and she was always listened to, the seldom times that she spoke. Her parents seemed to take pride in her good sense and her harmless silence. What terrors would they feel, if they knew that, even though she never spoke it, her eyes and ears always seeked the opportunity to assist the rebellion…